cover by HipGnosis
My niece Ryann Marie was born in the afternoon on Monday, April 26th! April 26th is an important day to my family and her being born on that particular date was pretty damn special. Ryann and her mom are healthy and happy; so my mind has been happily focused on things other than wrestling, metal and Scorsese flicks for the past week or so.
This past Thursday was National Poem in Your Pocket Day and I spent the afternoon handing out free poems to people downtown. It was awesome! Most people were pretty stoked to get a poem, and some even told me it made their day. As a fan of poetry, it was great to see so many people still excited and moved by it.
Alie went to Pennsylvania, yesterday, to spend time with her family and left me all alone last night with my beer, records and DVDs.
I go to this record store a lot to buy vinyl and, they do something really dangerous and yet cool: they email their dedicated vinyl costumers whenever they obtain large, new collections. They even add descriptions like "this batch is heavy on 70's weirdness, free jazz, rare blues." I love it.
Amongst my recent finds was a $3 copy of Black Sabbath's Never Say Die! What a strange record!
I used to shun this album, even though the original Sabbath line-up is, and always will be, one of my all-time favorite bands. Man, was I stubborn and clueless. In fact, the title of this post comes from the old Relapse board where an exasperated poster finally lashed out at everyone in one of those threads where people are ranking their favorite Sabbath albums (a staple of metal message boards) and either ranking Never Say Die! behind records like Headless Cross or leaving it out completely. I was firmly in the 'leave it out completely' crowd. He was right, I was wrong. The line has always stuck with me, though. This record definitely has more going on within it than its predecessor, Technical Ecstasy. The title track is a like last gasp. Like a twitch from a dead body, or one last desperate haymaker from an over-matched boxer with wobbly legs. Making it even weirder is the strained sense of optimism in the lyrics and delivery. Ozzy had already been fired once, he sounds tired, yet here he is with a neon bright hook/warcry about not surrendering. Sabbath aren't really known for hooks, but "Never Say Die" is definitely one exception. "A Hard Road" also has a nice, deliriously hefty hook.
"Johnny Blade" is one of my favorite and most underrated Sabbath songs. The creepy organ at the beginning reminds me of some of the music in Tenebre, then it mutates into these strangely mechanical and relentless metallic grooves with washes of synth. But what I really love are Ozzy's vocals. Holy shit are they DRAMATIC!!! So emotionally over the top in the best possible way! Songs like this are why I used to write "O-Z-Z-Y" on my fingers when I was a kid, and also why I go into "Old man yells at cloud" style fits of disappointed rage these days when I think about his stupid family, piece of shit MTV show and overall devolution into a cartoon with balls big enough to sue the people whose musical genius made him what he is (Geezer and Tony).
He wrings this awesome drama out of his vocals on"Johnny Blade", particularly the choruses, because I believe that maybe John Michael Osbourne actually wrote these lyrics and they are, at least partially, autobiographical. He knows it's nothing but a matter of time before he gets kicked out of Sabbath again and he acknowledges how lonely and scared he truly is by this eventuality. I think he knew he would probably just drink himself to death and that's exactly what he was doing when Don Arden's daughter rescued him a year or so later. That fear pours out through these vocals: WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU JOHNNY BLADE??
Continuing on the personal theme, I read somewhere that the title of "Junior's Eyes" was inspired by something Ozzy's father says. The jaggedly inspired psyche swoops, solos and flourishes on "Junior's Eyes" are played brilliantly yet so unlike most of Iommi's other work with Sabbath.
Despite some great moments from Ozzy, the true star of Never Say Die is, indeed, Tony Iommi. The weird thing about that is, I don't think this album contains one single legendary Iommi riff. It might be the only Sabbath album that doesn't have at least one, but in the words of Marc S. Tucker writing for Perfect Sound Forever:
Iommi entered an unusual short period, shown best in "Johnny Blade," where he's a solo mini-group, playing highly engaged dubbed counterpoints alongside and above his own base, not only on guitar but keyboards as well.
Tucker also mentions what he terms Iommi's "distinctly unorthodox compositional skill" and his "understanding of esoteric levels of play."
I agree wholeheartedly. It is hard to put in words how strangely constructed this album and these songs truly are. "Distinctly unorthodox" is about the best we can do.
Even the great Lester Bangs had trouble writing about Sabbath to his usual level of brilliance, even though he loved them. I don't feel as bad. According to Jim Derogatis's excellent Let it Blurt, Lester used to put on Master of Reality and start drinking Labatt Blue until he passed out. Who hasn't?
After I played Never Say Die, I had the urge to listen to "The Wizard" so I started spinning the first album and I realized I'd come full circle.
As I always say: Sabbath will pull you through.
More on Sabbath soon. I also watched a few old Undertaker matches that I wanted to comment on and I'll do that soon as well.
I have to go handout Free Comic Books.
As i do think its awesome that you are excited enough to write about your niece, and being she is only a week old im gonna have to speak for her and tell you your insane. See me and Ryann Marie already had this discussion and she agrees this album sucks as a matter of fact so does Technical Ecstasy(thats why i traded u that cd like 10 years ago)we are even gonna go one step further and act like those albums were never even made.
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